New Eyes

On Thursday we went to Hamilton so Dean could have Laser Eye Surgery. This means he doesn't have to wear his glasses any more, YAY! It's quite amazing really. We stayed with my Aunty Connie in Cambridge and she braved having both kids while I drove Dean to have the surgery, we were gone about 3 hours all up and she did a great job babysitting :)
On Friday mum came over from the Mount and we went to the Hamilton Zoo. It's a neat zoo and because we go to the Auckland Zoo so much it was cool to see they had a lot of different animals and quite a different and more natural set up.
As we were packing the kids back into the car ready to head back to Auckland, Dean suggested we head over to the Mount instead. Mum was stoked, so off we went for the weekend.
Saturday the whanau went for a long walk around the Mount with a couple of stops along the way for Nathan to play on the rocks and paddle in some rock pools. And then had a nice lunch at one of the cafes at Main Beach.
On Sunday I made a big brunch for the Dads (Dean and Dunk) and then the boys headed to the driving range. Then it was back to the big smoke.

2nd Born

I've often heard about how you don't get time to photograph your second born as much as the first, it was true in our family, finding baby photos of my younger brother is a bit harder than finding ones of me. So he made me promise to take lots of this bub so she's not behind in the photo department. It will be hard to keep up with the hundreds we have of Nathan, but I love photos and love whipping out the camera any opportunity so am doing ok so far.
The other day while i was taking lots of pics of Maia, Nathan jumped in front of the camera to remind me just how cute my first born is too.

The Weekend Wrap

Our local paper advertised that one of the local primary schools was having a fundraiser, with kapahaka and a hangi. Well it sounded pretty good to me so I suggested to Dean we check it out. What the paper failed to tell us was that the hangi tickets were pre-sold and we didn't find out until we got there. So all geared up to head out for a feed we thought we'd go somewhere for tea. We decided on Breakers as we hadn't been before and it looked like a child friendly place. This it was with the cool Kombi van booths to sit in and the colouring in sets for kids. But man the food was pretty average and was enough to make us think we probably wouldn't go back. Nathan had fun though so that was good :)
Sunday the whanau watched the Warriors win and then we had a visit from Nanny and Poppy who had been looking after Kael and Lisa who came to pick him up.

In the Morning

I am still sleeping in Maia's room at the moment as it's handy to just be right there when she wakes for feeds in the night. It was also so Deans sleep wouldn't be interuptted, even though it is with our other little monkey waking in the night lately and getting up quite early. So he gets up with Nathan in the morning and gives him his breakfast while I sleep a bit longer with Maia (I bring her into my bed after her 6.30am feed for cuddles :)
After Nathan has his breakfast etc he wonders where his Mummy and Maia are so comes to find us and has some cuddles and makes me get up!
Here he is cuddling with his sister. Check out her lips in that pic!! Those are from the Hilliard side :) There are also some pics of Maia today, we were home by ourselves while Nathan was at preschool. Hmm very quiet it was.

Maia's first trip away

Dean had a work paid snow trip on the weekend and the deal was he couldn't leave me at home with the kids by myself so had to drop me to the Mount to mum and dads, which he gladly did :) While he hit the slopes, we had a nice weekend lounging around Nanny and Poppas house.

Nathan managed a couple of trips to the beach with Poppa where he learnt how to kick the ball like Dan Carter. Poppa made sandcastles for him but quickly learnt that sandcastles are only made to be kicked over.

Maia had a few visitors also with Nanny Louie coming over from Ohope to see her, and the Flemings coming to check her out too. Other than that it was a very laid back weekend. The little princess travelled very well and slept the whole way.

Flying Solo

I've had some great help and support since Maia was born. Mum was up for the first week and helped with looking after Nathan, housework and meals. She left on Friday and then Dean took over, he has been great too. He cooked some lovely meals and spent a lot of quality time with Nathan, taking him to the circus and the zoo etc. He went back to work today so I'm flying solo with the two kiddies. It's been pretty good so far, we've played bubbles, train set, had a visitor then had lunch. Nathan's gone down for his nap now so I might have one too. As for lil miss sleepy head, She's had her eyes open for all of about 10mins and other than feeds she's been sleeping the whole time. It's a real effort to try and wake her for feeds, and mostly she just feeds and sleeps at the same time. She's got a lovely new Moses basket from Nanny so she can be out in the lounge with us during the day and for taking away with us on trips to the Mount. So so far Being mum of 2 has been pretty smooth. I guess having a few more clues than first time round helps, and just not being so exhausted helps too.

1 Week Old

Maia was 1 week old on Monday and the midwife came for her check up, she's not impressed as you can see, but had some relaxation time with her brother later in the day

Haircut

My poor boy. I don't know which is worse, the fact he could hardly see out through his long fringe or the fact that I'm the one giving it a trim. He doesn't seem to mind though :)

Maia Means Brave

In Maori Maia (pronounced like Maya, Mya Myer) means Brave. And a brave little thing she is.

Because she was such a big girl at birth they had to test her blood sugar levels. They tested by pricking her heel to take blood. All up she had about 6 heel pricks 3 of which showed her levels were low. On her second day in the world she had to go to the special care unit to have a glucose drip inserted into her poor little foot to help until her body started to regulate it's blood sugar.
Our beautiful girl was very brave and in the end hardly flinched with the heel pricks.
What was a bit funny was seeing her next to all the little tiny premature babies in the special care unit, she towered over them :)

She has since had another little hiccup. We arrived home on Wednesday and I noticed while feeding she had stopped breathing. A splash of water on the face snapped her out of it and after mentioning it to the midwife on her next visit she spoke to a paediatrician who said she should probably come back into hospital to sus it out. So back to hospital again for the night where they figured it could be a combo of a refluxy type thing where the milk comes back up and her airway shuts off to stop it flowing over, and also that she hasn't quite mastered the coordination required to breathe, suck and swallow so while sucking forgets to breathe. It hasn't been helped by the fact my milk came in in a major way and so we've had to work around that too. As my milk flow has settled down so has the breathing issue, and anytime it does happen it takes her a few seconds and a few blows of breath on the face to snap her out of it.

Those little bumps in the road aside she is such a healthy, lovely, gorgeous, sleepy, placid baby. Hope that last word stays that way, she could very well mix it up on us soon and really start exercising her lungs and voice a bit more :)

Here's the latest pics of her hanging with the whanau, not enjoying her first bath, and admiring her daddy.

Nathan the Champion Big Brother

Nathan has been such an awesome big brother so far. He loves his new sister to bits and is so cute with her. He sits next to her and says oooh she's lovely. He likes to have little holds and play with her nose and has been very gentle.
Here he is playing in his hut with Moses, and off to the circus with Dad.

The New Hilliard in the Hood

Introducing Maia Mere-Korara Hilliard!! She came into the world two weeks late but within 1.5 hours from first contraction to taking her first breath.
I went into hospital to have my waters broken to get things going at 9.30 in the morning but we had to fluff around until someone could get my leur in (the thing with which drips etc are hooked into) After 4 attepmts by two different midwives I was feeling rather like a pin cushion and would rather wait for someone more experienced :) So after a bit of a wait it was all on.

11.50 waters broken
1.40 first contraction
3.17 Born into the world at 4.675kg 10pounds 2oz 54.5cm long

Wow what a whirlwind! It happened all very quick and after she was born a little bit of Greys Anatomy action drama scene went down. They thought I might have been bleeding a bit much and as a precautionary measure it seemed the whole hopsital of midwives and anaesthetist's came in but after all that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as they thought. But good to know they're on the ball and ready to go in case.

She spent a bit of time in the Special Care unit because she is such a big girl her blood sugar levels were a bit all over the place, she was getting such good kai from mum that when she came out they dropped. So she had a glucose drip in to help until her body could regulate it herself. She's all good now and feeds well. She his so gorgeous and loves sleeping at this stage, I'm sure we'll have fun with that down the track, but at the moment it is really just sleep and eat :)

We took a couple of days to pick the Name off our shortlist and after all that we went with the name that we had for Nathan if he was a girl. I've always liked Maia and Mere-Korara is my maternal grandmothers and great great grandmothers name, and Hilliard well you know...

So here she is...

1 day longer than Nathan

Well after another false Labour on Friday afternoon (very frustrating) I am still here with my baby in my belly :) With Nathan I was 13 days 'overdue' and today I am 14 days over with this one. Obviously it's just how my body is, I'm a 42 week baby carrier :) My midwife visited yesterday and we tried a few things to get this thing going, but to no avail. I was booked in this morning with the obstetrician to break my waters but was having second thoughts with fear that it would lead from one intervention to another. But after talking with my midwife she says my cervix is so ready to go and babys head is soooo low, she doesn't understand why I'm not in labour already, and that breaking my waters will almost definately set labour off. So I am meeting her at 9.30 which I am more comfortable about and she will break my waters and we'll go from there. I'm really praying that Labour kicks in from that, and they will be able to keep the Syntocinon well away!!!
So we hope to meet our little girl today, and will be able to introduce you to her soon enough.

Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers!!!

41weeks and 4 days

Well people, I think she will be here soon!

Toy Library

We've been on the waiting list at the Toy Library for ages and finally they called me up to say we made it to the top. So I whipped over and joined up and grabbed a few toys for Nathan. It's cool coz they have lots of BIG stuff that you may never buy but it's cool to have it for a few weeks. So I got him a basketball hoop, which mostly he likes to kick the ball around rather than shoot hoops. I also got him a rocking horse thingo and a play shop. He here is after his nap with heaps of energy shooting hoops.

"DUE DATE"

Well today is the official 'due date'. After such a long wait past due date with Nathan I am very mindful that this day means nothing really. I guess it could happen any day now but at this stage I am very comfortable to wait a bit longer and make the most of the time before things really change. I'm sure if it gets to next weekend I will definitely be wanting her to arrive as it does become a drag waiting too long. So in the mean time I'll field the calls and txt's and bebo messages of enquiry as to whether anything has happened yet. But no doubt most of you who read this will be some of the first people to know when it does go down, so be patient and keep your phones on ready for the mass txt that will go out. Think of me waddling around with this big belly until that time comes :)

Lollipops and All Blacks

Watching the All Blacks beat the Aussies on the big screen. Go the All Blacks!! Also below some gingerbread men doing the haka, an ad for the best bakery comp in NZ. Nathan loves it.